


Valiant Return

by ddynoliaeth



Series: Death!Ianto Universe [3]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Year That Never Was, lots of blood and violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 07:12:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10589034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddynoliaeth/pseuds/ddynoliaeth
Summary: After having seen his entire team murdered at the hands of The Master during The Year That Never Was, Jack returns to his own time and seeks to help his relationship with Ianto progress into something more than just a casual fling.





	

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this please consider commissioning me to write some fic for you!  
> http://vincenoir.tumblr.com/post/161648060242/hey-so-im-severely-strapped-for-cash-at-the

In the end, it was the team that broke Captain Jack Harkness. Not the repeated murdering, not the torture, not the threats of eternity in this hell scape they called the _Valiant_. It was the simple act of bringing Torchwood’s finest on board after The Master retrieved them from their impromptu visit to the Himalayas.

They started with Owen.

Doctor Owen Harper did not beg for his life. He did not cry - although Jack did - and he did not bargain. He simply told a gagged, chained Jack that he always knew the job came with a guaranteed shortened lifespan, and that he didn’t blame anyone but the deranged Master.

They shot him through the head.

They brought in Toshiko next, and she did cry. Silent tears, rolling down her face, while her voice remained unaffected by the fear she hid to protect Jack from further pain.

“It’s alright, Jack,” she said. “I’ve lived the life I wanted to live. I’ve done good for the human race, and I’m proud of that even if the Toclafanes think they’ve erased it all. I will be at peace.”

Tosh was beaten until she stopped twitching, and then for a few minutes more, just to make sure.

Jack was presented with Ianto Jones next, but upon seeing his violent reaction - pulling at his chains and screaming through his gag - they swiftly replaced him with Gwen. They had assumed they’d been leaving the most devastating until last, but his relief at delaying Ianto’s death suggested otherwise.

Gwen begged. She screamed and thrashed and said nothing of comfort to Jack, said nothing to him at all, and then would say nothing ever again after the last drops of blood seeped through the slit in her throat.

Ianto was chained up across from Jack while the rest of the team’s corpses were hauled off the side of the _Valiant_. He was left with his ability to speak, he was not blindfolded. They had cut out his eyes since replacing him with Gwen - surgically, so as to leave him with the highest level of health they could. The others had merely had their eyes covered. Ianto was different, and they knew it.

They slit his wrists, cross-wise and lightly, and left two buckets underneath his arms to catch the blood. They returned every hour to cut him anew.

Ianto, unlike Gwen, spoke to Jack every moment they were alone, and every second they weren’t.

“My old Tad never was a tailor,” he said. “He worked at Dickson’s. I don’t know why I lied; probably just wanted to impress you. I was always doing that. Everything I did, I was just showing out, trying to get you to look my way.”

Jack never once stopped crying through the days he was hung across from Ianto Jones. He soaked in every detail of Ianto’s face, his body, clad in a torn suit, his hair. He memorised his smell - oaky, heady, and even now, almost a year since any of his beloved machines had worked, a hint of coffee beans. He ached to run his fingers down Ianto’s face, taste his tongue, stare into those bluest of eyes.

“It was just me, my Mam, Tad, and Rhiannon growing up,” Ianto said, teeth gritting through the pain as a nameless, faceless guard renewed his wounds and began the blood letting again. It reminded him of the Beacons, of the looming threat of death, the stench of rotting flesh suspended from creaky rafters. He pushed his memories down, along with the nausea they raised. “We used to climb trees together, Rhi and I. We used to be so close, before I left for university. For London. For Torchwood One.

“She met her husband, Johnny, after Tad died and we lost touch. They have two kids - David and Mica. They’re the only family I’ve got left. Although, I suppose I don’t have them anymore, either.”

Even while Ianto related the probable loss of his only living family, Jack sought to commit every syllable, every lilting tone of his voice to memory. He believed in the Doctor, believed in Martha Jones, but he didn’t know if he would ever get his team back again. This could be his final chance to hear those Welsh vowels he adored so much.

“You know, I always thought I’d get married someday,” Ianto said, his voice getting weaker after three days of slow bleeding, hoarse from overuse. “For a while I thought it would be to Lisa. I guess that dream died at the Battle of Canary Wharf. I thought, maybe, if I lived long enough and worked hard enough, it might even be you I’d marry. Funny how your priorities change when the world has been ending for a year. Now, I’d just be happy to see you one more time. I wouldn’t want you to be crying, though, Jack.” Damnit, how did he know? “I’d want to see that cocky smirk of yours. I’d want to see that face you make when you see something you think is amusing. I’d want to see you happy, Jack.

“I’m happy, Jack,” he whispered as the last guard shift cut his wrists for the final time. He was barely able to keep himself breathing now, but he continued to force himself to talk, to comfort Jack. “I want you to remember that. I want you to remember me as I was before you left, before Harold Saxon became The Master. The me that laughed, smiled, made snarky comments, fought with Owen. Remember me as I was then, Jack, not as I am now. Remember me for as long as you are able.”

Jack nodded, rattling the chains that bound his arms as he tried to convey his emotions to a man with no sight.

“Jack, I hope you’re there,” Ianto said. “I hope you’ve heard all this. I hope this isn’t some cruel trick they’re playing on me.”

Moments passed where Ianto said nothing. He had not been this silent for this long since the beginning of his ordeal - Jack feared he’d run out of blood to lose.

“Jack,” he whispered. “Jack, I… I love you.”

And then Ianto Jones exhaled his last breath, and was no more.

Jack screamed into his gag for hours, tears burning his face until he was too dehydrated to shed one more. Even then he continued to shout, to fight against his restraints. When he passed out from exhaustion, they removed his gag.

They left the body there. They dowsed it in formaldehyde and they left it hanging across from him for the next three weeks. The thing that was Ianto Jones went stiff and pale after a day. After a week it had to be injected and washed down with chemicals twice a day to prevent the smell from permeating the _Valiant_. Instead, Jack got used to the smell of alcohol and something he was unable to place as it overtook Ianto’s smell.

_What did he smell like?_

_… What did his voice sound like?_

_…… What colour were his eyes?_

 

**———————————————————————————————————————————**

 

“Haven’t been Weevil hunting in ages.”

Jack had been strangely unwilling to allow Ianto back into the field since his return from his travels with the Doctor. Ianto figured it was some sort of reaction to their self-sufficiency while he was gone: returning to the good old days of yore, when Ianto spent his time cleaning the Hub, buried in the Archives, making the team coffee. After the whole John Hart debacle and their half-date of pizza in the Hub and a dvd rental (they never had time to make plans far enough in advance for reservations or booking movie tickets), things had mostly returned to normal, although with decidedly less danger heading Ianto’s way. It felt odd.

So when Jack invited him out for a night of Weevil hunting, Ianto was disinclined to say no.

Their first hunt was after Susie’s resurrection; they spent two hours tracking one Weevil - just following, observing. The rush when they caught it, sedated it in the back of the SUV, lead to their first post-hunt fuck session, a tradition that lasted until Jack left off to follow his Doctor. Ianto didn’t know if that was where this hunt would lead, but he certainly wouldn’t be complaining if it was.

“Yeah. Thought we could both do with a bit of time out, you know?” Jack said, climbing behind the driver’s seat of the SUV. Ianto slipped into the passenger’s seat, smiling at the comfort sitting beside Jack brought him. “Everyone’s a bit overwhelming right now. And, besides, I’ve missed you.”

“Don’t go getting soppy on me now, sir,” Ianto teased, doing up his seatbelt and grinning over at Jack.

“Life is fraught with dangers, Ianto Jones. Never let it be said that soppiness was one of the worse ones.”

“Touché. Where did you say this Weevil was?”

It was an hour before they caught sight of the Weevil. It was scavenging around behind a dumpster bin, the sounds of it gorging itself on the carcass of an urban fox floating out through the alleyway entrance. Jack parked the SUV at the head of the alley, blocking the only exit. He and Ianto burst out of the idling car, stun-guns and anti-Weevil spray held aloft as they descended on the creature.

Ianto got to it first, having been on the closest side of the SUV. He sprayed the Weevil, backed it into a corner - it dropped the half-eaten fox to the ground, breaking its back on a rogue piece of steel piping. Jack rounded it from the other side, pulling a syringe out from his coat pocket. Ianto nodded, and Jack stabbed the syringe into the Weevil’s neck, pressing down on the plunger. It swung its arm out, catching Ianto on the shoulder with blunted but strong claws as it dropped to the ground, sedated. Jack grinned triumphantly at Ianto, already bending to pick up the hulk of unresponsive Weevil, but stopped abruptly when he saw how Ianto clutched at his left shoulder, blood beginning to seep from the superficial wound.

“Shit, Ianto!” he shouted, leaping over the Weevil to grab Ianto by the arm, pulling his hand away from his shoulder. “Fuck, you’re hurt. We gotta get you back to Owen, he’ll be able to fix you, you’re gonna be alright, you’re gonna be fine, you’re gonna be -”

“Jack!”

Ianto peered at Jack with blatant confusion. Jack stared back with abject fear in his eyes, breathing heavily.

“What’s gotten into you? I’ve had far worse wounds making coffee on two hours sleep,” Ianto said. Jack didn’t answer, just looked down and released Ianto’s arms. He turned away, heaving the Weevil up by its armpits and dragging it towards the SUV, ignoring Ianto’s questions.

“Jack? Jack! Answer me!”

Jack closed the doors to the back of the SUV with a thud, leaning against them with his head bowed. He took a deep breath, refusing to face Ianto.

“You could have died.”

“From a scratch? Jack, I know you think I’m fragile, but I’m not as useless as all that.”

“That’s not the point!” Jack shouted, whirling on Ianto, face set in a mix between anger and fear. Ianto took a moment, gathered himself.

“What is the point, then, Jack?” he asked softly, stepping forward and reaching out to him. Jack turned away, but Ianto refused to let him hide, pulling him back to face him. He studied his face, worry etched in his own expression. “Tell me. Let me in, for once. Don’t shut me out.”

Jack sighed, running a hand through his hair, looking down and away from Ianto’s questioning eyes - _blue, they’re blue, the bluest blue I’ve ever seen_ \- and steeled himself.

“It was The Year That Never Was,” he said, leaning back against the back of the SUV. “The time I spent with the Doctor. I was with him an entire year, a year that got rewound and rewritten in history.

“I spent that year on the _Valiant_ , a military airship, as their prisoner while the Earth was destroyed by these creatures called Toclafanes - humans, from the end of time, bent on creating a new empire for the next five hundred trillion years. They tortured me, killed me over and over again. And then, one day, they figured out the way to really get to me.

“They brought you in, one by one, you and the others. They murdered you all in cold blood in front of me, didn’t let me say any last words to you. Everyone else, they were mercifully quick. You, they kept alive for days. Bled you dry over a week. Tore out your eyes, so you couldn’t see me, gagged me so I couldn’t say goodbye. You spent every last second telling me about yourself, connecting to me. I know so much more about you than I should, Ianto. I know that you and your sister used to climb trees as children, but you stopped talking after your father passed away. I know your father wasn’t really a tailor, that he worked in Dickson’s.

“I know that you hoped, hope, one day, that you might marry me.”

Ianto couldn’t formulate a response to that. To have his secrets laid so bare, without his knowledge. For Jack to know him so intimately, without Ianto having told him anything, it was difficult to cope with.

“I was worried,” Jack said, interrupting Ianto’s thoughts. “After you… when you were gone, they left you there for three weeks. I sat with the shell of you for three weeks.”

“Jack…”

“I meant it when I said I came back for you,” Jack said. “Just you. You were the one that broke me, in the end. Seeing you again, the thought that I could have a second chance? I needed that, more than I’d ever need a trip with the Doctor.

“I’d give my eternal life never to have to see you like that again, Ianto.”

“You can’t just say things like that,” Ianto said, stepping backwards.

“I know you love me, Ianto,” Jack whispered. “I know you do. And it’s _okay_. It’s okay because, what I realised in those three weeks staring at your… at you, was that I… I’m in love with you, too, Ianto.”

Ianto’s mouth hung open, working to form words. Jack seemed as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, as though he could scream from the rooftops his love for Ianto - and, given his penchant for rooftops, that could be a very real danger.

“I didn’t die,” is what Ianto came up with.

“You did, but time reset itself,” Jack attempted to explain.

“No, I mean, I couldn’t have died,” Ianto said, shaking his head. “Jack, I _can’t_ die.”

“Don’t be a shit, Ianto,” Jack growled, turning away.

“I’m not being a shit, _Jack_. If anyone can understand this, it’s you. I can’t die, because I’m not built to die. I’m not able to. If anything, I’m in a perpetual state of being dead.”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Did that Weevil hit you on the head, too?”

“Jack, listen to me,” Ianto hissed, grabbing Jack by the shoulders. “I won’t die. I never will. Because I was never alive to begin with - not in the strictest sense.” He took a deep breath. “Jack, I am Death.”

“… Death.”

“Death.”

“Right,” Jack said. “And if you’re Death, why haven’t you told me this before?”

“Yes, because you’ve got such a wonderful track record of not freaking out over these kinds of things.”

“Alright,” Jack conceded. “But that doesn’t explain why you died on the _Valiant_.”

“You also don’t handle people sticking around very well,” Ianto said, anger beginning to cloud his words. “Can you really tell me you still want me to be around, knowing that the convenience of death won’t take me away? That you’ll let me stay, you’ll still fuck me, knowing that you’ll eventually have to put the effort in to break it off? We both know I’m done for now. You don’t love people who can actually stay with you. You don’t love for the long haul. You barely even love for the short term.”

“Shut up!” Jack screamed, slamming his fist against the back of the SUV. They both stood in silence for a while, breathing heavily, letting their anger ebb away.

“You’re right,” Jack said after a while. “Before I went away, I would have sent you away, put you in the Archives, locked you up, something. But now? Now I’m just happy I don’t have to be scared any more.”

“Scared?”

“Of seeing you like that again. I don’t know how you do it, every time I die.”

“Neither do I,” Ianto said, smiling. Jack huffed a laugh.

“So what does this mean? For us?”

“There’s an us?” Ianto asked, mischief glinting in his eye.

“I confess my undying love for you, knowing that you love me back, and you don’t think there’s an us?”

“I don’t believe I ever said I did love you, actually,” Ianto said, smirking.

“Ianto,” Jack said, voice low but teasing.

“I guess this means I ask for the exclusivity I’ve always wanted from you.”

“Done. Anything else?”

“Not particularly, unless you count a nice snog to cement our newfound relationship?”

Jack grinned.

“Now that? That’s even easier.”

“Oh, and Jack?”

“Hmm?”

“I do love you.”

“I know,” Jack smirked, pulling Ianto to him and trapping himself against the SUV. “Now I believe there was some promise of a kiss?”

Ianto smiled, leaned forward, and kissed the man he loved, the immortal man who loved him back.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate reveal for my Death!Ianto verse, mostly written because I realised I'm actually very good at angst. But, of course, I always have to have a happy ending.


End file.
